Glissando

Hi there, What is a good technique for glissandoing? I struggle to do this without getting a sore hand pretty quick.

When you say sore hand, it makes me think that you're using the soft flesh of your fingers to do the glissando. I remember the first time I saw the technique used like that, by someone on a keyboard with really light keys. I went home, tried it on my piano and sliced a layer of skin off! The method I use most of the time is to use thumb nails when descending in right (ascending in left) and the nails of my second and third fingers when going the other way. It takes some care to ensure you don't hit the soft skin just above the nails though (ivory doesn't look to good with a bright red stripe down the middle!). I have also used the palm of my hand if I want both black and white keys - you see Hammond organ players doing this fairly frequently. It seems that if you want just black keys you might need to use the soft side of your fingers. I've never managed an octave glissando - I saw Paul Lewis do one in a Beethoven piano concerto once - it looked like he had fingers of steel. I hope some of this is useful.

Yes, that is very useful - thanks for the differentiation of what-to-use-when.

I should add to the above that when I first started using glissandi I tended to use more force than was necessary and depressed the starting key all the way to the bottom. These days I rarely press the starting key all the way down, and I'm much more intelligent with the amount of force I use, which depends on what effect I need to achieve.

Nice comments, Nick. I would only question one thing: does ivory really look so bad with a red streak down the middle? AFF

On a more serious note, I especially like your mention of the use of the palm. I've been experimenting a lot with all sorts of palm glissandos and they bring an amazing feeling to the hand. Do enough of them and you begin to feel like you really play piano all the time with your palm, that your fingers are just a necessary tool to transmit the amazing power and control of the palm to the key. AFF